By Malcolm Conn, Daniel Brettig and Andrew Wu
London: England captain Ben Stokes says his team and Australia’s players caught up at a nightclub after a breakdown in communication resulted in Pat Cummins’ men being locked out of the hosts’ dressing room after the fifth Test.
Stokes took to social media at 4:11am local time to clarify the “misunderstanding” that prevented the two teams from meeting up for the traditional post-series drink in the dressing room.
An England spokesman had earlier said the home side were “shocked” when they went to invite the Australians in and found they had already left the ground.
An Australian team spokesman declined to comment, but sources close to the team, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, claimed they knocked on the England dressing room door a number of times and waited for more than an hour.
“To clarify… Our wrap took longer than expected because of multiple last time event’s [sic]. We decided to meet up in the night club rather than the dressing room,” Stokes wrote on Twitter in a tweet signed off with eight emojis denoting celebration.
There was tension between the teams when Jonny Bairstow was stumped during the second Test at Lord’s after walking out of his crease believing it was the end of an over.
England took the high moral ground, with coach Brendon McCullum claiming he wouldn’t share a drink with the Australians and captain Ben Stokes saying he would have done things differently. The Australians insist it was part of the game.
“I can’t imagine we’ll be having a beer with them any time soon,” McCullum said after the Bairstow incident ignited the series during the second Test at Lord’s.
Australia celebrate retaining the Ashes after a spicy five-Test series.Credit: Getty Images
McCullum later walked back that comment.
“It’s a lovely line for the narrative, isn’t it? In the end, we’re all going to sit down and have a beer, aren’t we? It was just a little bit of banter at the end there.”
An England team spokesman said on Tuesday: “After the media commitments at the end of the Test, both teams had their families and friends celebrating and reminiscing in the respective dressing rooms. That lasted quite a long period.
“We then did our end-of-Test wrap-up, which included a number of presentations to our retired players and staff.
“After the formal proceedings we were going to invite Australia in for a drink and they had left.
“I’m not sure what the exact time was, but it was around 10.30pm, 10.40pm. There was no indication to say they had gone.
Opposing skippers Ben Stokes and Pat Cummins.Credit: Getty Images
“It’s a great shame that a drink wasn’t shared and the opportunity of looking back on an epic series.”
The incident occurred only a few hours after Stokes claimed that both teams got on well together.
“I think that’s just the progression of franchise cricket, to be honest. There’s a lot of players who have relationships with the opposition now, not just England and Australia, but other teams around the world,” Stokes said.
“In particular the IPL, you spend nine weeks with someone you play against. I spent two or three years at Rajasthan with Steve Smith. You get to know each other and stuff like that. But when it comes down to bat and ball against the opposition, you know he wants to smack you for four, and he knows you want to get him out.
“But it’s a natural progression from franchise cricket as to why you’re not going to see aggression and stuff out in the middle you might’ve seen from previous Ashes series.”
McCullum later stated that the two teams would have a beer, and that his earlier comments around the Bairstow stumping had been, in his mind, misconstrued.
“Yeah we’ll have a beer,” McCullum said. “I definitely don’t think less of Pat. I’ve had the pleasure of being able to coach Pat in the IPL, he’s an absolute champion fella, he’s done an amazing job with the captaincy and with the Australian team and I consider him one of my mates as well.
“I think if we look back to after that Test match, I don’t necessarily think what I said was construed in the right way. What I was saying was I’ve made mistakes in the past and there’s times where you look back and say maybe when you’re a little bit younger you don’t quite understand some of those decisions you make, but I look back with regret on some of them and I’ve put my hand up to say that.
“That’s what I was challenging, but in the end everyone’s entitled to do what they want. There’s no right or wrong in that, and that’s the grey area around the spirit of cricket. I know with the benefit of time what I would’ve done in that situation, but they’re more than entitled to do what they want. Ashes series have all these twists and turns that people talk about and remember them by. That was certainly one of those.“
The reaction to Bairstow’s stumping was the low point of the tour, with the Australians abused and booed by the Lord’s crowd and howled down with chants of cheat, which extended to the Long Room.
Various video clips show Usman Khawaja and David Warner confronting abusive Marylebone Cricket Club members, while dozens are shown booing and abusing the Australians. Three members were subsequently suspended and investigations continue.
In 2019, both teams had a wonderful time mixing and drinking with each other after the last Test at the Oval. The Times of London ran a poignant picture of the occasion on the back page.
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